Introducing Brother Bacon

Well, today, I'm going to be posting a number of little odds and ends. They're not quite Depth Charges ("the lowest form of explosive-cargo") but they're close. So, let's call them "Brother Bacon's Squibs And Crackers."

(You'll recall that the thirteenth century monk, Roger Bacon, included in his notes one of the first known recipes for gunpowder.)

So, here we go…

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I saw in the news this morning that Hillary Clinton has ruled out a run for president.

Sad, but inevitable. She would have made a excellent president. But, circumstances ruled against her. Indeed, her greatness is best evidenced by her principled decision NOT to run in 2010. Doing so would have vastly hurt her party.

So, as some let praise her. As some people claimed that her husband was the first "African-American President," so let us remark that she was the first female president of the nation...

Only, like Tilden a century ago, she was too patriotic to take the White House, knowing it would harm the nation.

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So, I read in the news that Donald Trump has said that Sarah Palin is a lightweight, that Obama isn't any better, and he's considering running for president in 2012.

Yes. You read that right. Donald ("You're Fired") Trump. For president. That is, of the United States. Running against Sarah ("Moose Killer") Palin.

For some strange reason I'm reminded of a poem. Something about Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Can't imagine why that image is coming to mind.

Must be 'cause I'm just so dang literary.

"Exclusive: Donald Trump Says Presidential Run 'Could be Fun,' Decision by June" at blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/11/trump-presidential-run-could-be-fun-decision-by-june.html.

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Oh, here's another one that's fun.

I've read on the U.S. News and World Report site that Wall Streeters, Investment Bankers, CEOs and big corporate business types are running really scared …because of the election.

No kidding.

You see, here's the thing. The top 1% of the American population which owns pretty everything any more spent a whole heck of a lot of money (much of it secretly) to put "fiscal conservatives," Tea Partiers, Libertarians, Ayn Randers, and Laissez Fairies into office. They've done everything they can to cripple the Obama administration short of violence (and I'm not sure that they didn't consider going beyond even that. Remember all the Gun-totting crackpots that showed up in protest marches right after he was elected?)

So, now, they've got what they want…

Except, they're also starting to realize the price of that. They have basically sold themselves to people who, as God is their witness, want to reduce Washington to a broad spot in the road and "free the economy."

Ah, but as the 1%-ers know perfectly well, a completely unregulated economy, without any management what so ever, leads pretty inevitably to things like hyperinflation, Recessions, Depressions, market crashes, violence in the street and…well, all manner of stuff that can just spoil your whole day. Or several days. Maybe your life.

So, folks, you who looted the public coffers, who out-sourced and downsized and deindustrialized and put into joblessness…this is the government you wanted.

I wonder, will you survive it?

Give me your guess.


Source: 4 Fresh Fears About Washington Wrecking the Economy, finance.yahoo.com/news/4-Fresh-Fears-About-usnews-2195640786.html?x=0

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What's the line in the Bible? Sow the wind?

But, then, 1%ers probably don't read the Bible. Has all those depressing bits. About eyes of needles. And people who just won't fit through 'em.

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So I see that now President Obama is now being criticized by the Right for writing a children's book that doesn't say Sitting Bull was a terrorist.

For the Right to say such a thing is ridiculous, of course. But, come, let us confess. It was inevitable. The state of political discourse in this country has become so vicious that Obama could not praise motherhood and Apple pie without Fox News announcing that he had a Oedipal Fruit Fetish.


nation.foxnews.com/media/2010/11/15/obama-praises-indian-chief-who-killed-us-general

aolnews.com/politics/article/fox-news-headline-on-president-obama-kids-book-ignites-sitting-bull-controversy/19720203?icid=maing|main5


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I say a lot of hard things about the 1%ers, and I mean them.

But, I'm not terribly fond of socialism either. I think it tends to come in two forms: Swedish and Soviet.

The first kind is run by bureaucrats, technocrats, social engineers, and other folks who are just so gawdamn smug your wanna strangle 'em. The second kind, at least in its early stages, is run by intellectuals, would-be intellectuals, wanna be intellectuals, and other beard and sandal-types of the sort that show up in college towns and pontificates a lot.

The worst part about the first sort of socialism is that it is damn dull. But you don't have to worry about dullness when you get the other sort. Its leaders tend to be people like Lenin, and Trotsky, and Mao—-people full of energy, with fascinating intellects and enormous charisma.

Though, they do have the unfortunate habit of thinking of other people as abstractions ("The People," "The Workers," "The Proletariat"). And then, once they're power, millions of such two-legged abstract concepts…die, in the gulag, or the camps, or in the Revolution.

So, here's my advice. If you find yourself in a society that seems to be moving toward the first sort of socialism, invest in Prozac.

If you find yourself in the second…keep shooting until you empty the clip. Then, use the rifle butt to club the body until it stops twitching.

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Onward and upward.






Copyright © Michael Jay Tucker 2010